Taiwan News Quick Take

Staff writer, with CNA

CRIME

Woman faces trafficking trial

A Taiwanese woman has been charged with human trafficking after allegedly sending hundreds of Cambodians to work in slave-like conditions on fishing boats off the coast of Africa, police said yesterday. Lin Yu-shin, owner of the now-defunct Giant Ocean International Co, was arrested in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on Friday, said Chiv Phally of the Cambodian Ministry of the Interior’s human trafficking department. Lin, 53, has been charged by a Phnom Penh court, he said, adding that she has been under investigation since late 2011 when allegations first surfaced of Cambodian fishermen being made to work for up to 20 hours a day without pay. Lin’s firm allegedly began sending Cambodian workers to man trawlers off the coasts of South Africa, Mauritius and Senegal in 2009, as well as to work on boats near Japan, Fiji, Qatar, Malaysia and Singapore, Chiv Phally said. Leang Sam Nat, an investigative judge at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, confirmed the charge and said Lin was being detained pending further investigation.

CHARITY

Quake donations at US$56m

Taiwan has donated NT$1.67 billion (US$56.02 million) so far toward relief efforts in the aftermath of the magnitude 7 earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan Province last month, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) said yesterday. Yang said that since April 20, donations from Taiwan had grown to about 348 million Chinese yuan (US$56 million). Taiwanese also donated 16.28 million yuan worth of relief materials, he added. Yang expressed “deep gratitude” on behalf of residents of the quake-stricken region for the donations. The earthquake left nearly 200 people dead and more than 12,000 injured, according to Chinese media reports.